Where were you?

Where were you on this day 40 years ago? We were so excited to think we would see man walking on the moon. Mackay did not have a TV transmitter so the only people in town with television sets had to have 20 foot high aerials to pick up a signal from Rockhampton, nearly 400 km south of here - and mostly had a grainy black and white picture anyway. I visited a friend and waited and waited for the astronauts to wake up, then we had to peer at the screen to see shadowy figures! Still very exciting, but I remember the high school students being bored and saying it was just like the science fiction movies they had been watching for ages! I wonder if they are still saying it was boring, I bet they are much more likely to be saying "I remember......"

We have been having very strange weather for the last week or so - very summery temps last Tuesday, 17 - 27 degrees and high humidity, then by Friday down to 2.8 degrees. We are in the tropics, definitely not supposed to get that sort of temperature, I was colder than the whole time I was away! Thank goodness we are back to normal again now, with minimums of about 10 degrees and max about 21 - much more comfortable.
This calliandra is covered in lovely red pompoms for most ofthe winter and the honeyeaters just love it. There are always half a dozen or so feeding and singing in the branches. The bush is quite old and is getting pretty straggly, but I love having the birds so it is staying

We had a guided walk for Garden Friends last Saturday and Hamish was getting thoroughly bored so I took him out onto the boardwalk where he had lots of fun getting down to move the weeds around - his mother would have been horrified but she didn't see, and I mostly had hold of him so he couldn't fall in anyway!

Unfortunately we have lots of these weeds and the biological controls are not working very well so far. The reddish weed you can see in the photo is salvinia, with a few bits of lettuce weed. There is also a lot of water hyacinth in other patches. There are weevils supposed to control each of them, but so far the only one doing its job is the one to control the lettuce weed. The Gardens section of the lagoon was completely cleared eighteen months ago, but then in the flood early last year great rafts of weed washed down from further upstream - from where the owners had said there was no weed! I think there are plans to bring back the weed harvester, but that is a very expensive exercise so will await the budget deliberations.

Gorgeous sunny day here today so I am off outside to check on the seedlings I planted out yesterday.